SNP Pants On Fire

NEW: The SNP has 72,186 members, the party's ruling national executive committee has been told

That's down from almost 104,000 in 2021, the last year that numbers were previously available for

— Kieran Andrews (@KieranPAndrews) March 16, 2023

So it seems SNP HQ has been telling porky pies about its membership figures in recent weeks and months.

The numbers are down by 31,814 in less than two years which is quite astonishing.

All of a sudden Nicola Sturgeon has lost her halo!

Nic, Deek and SNP Leadership Material (November 29, 2021)

Nicola Sturgeon talks up the supposed 'wealth of talent' in the SNP, but the scary thing is that until very recently she would have said the same about her former finance minister Derek Mackay!

SNP - Mired in Scandal (2) (July 09, 2021)

Derek Mackay is another former SNP minister who has enjoyed the extraordinarily generous payments made to Scottish cabinet secretaries who resign or get sacked,  along with MSPs who leave the Scottish Parliament.

After resigning as finance minister Derek hung on as an MSP for another 15 months (salary @£80,000 including pension benefits) before collecting a golden goodbye payment worth £54,000 - the first £30,000 of which was tax free! 

The SNP's investigation into Deek's behaviour was dropped after more than a year after Mackay suddenly resigned his party membership.

 

 

 

SNP Spin Machine - We Need To Talk About Derek (December 15, 2020)

The SNP is ruthless when it comes to suspending people who cause the party embarrassment, but as far as I know no disciplinary action has been against Derek Mackay since he was forced to resign as ScotGov finance minister back in February 2020.

Derek is still drawing his MSP salary expenses despite his absence from the Scottish Parliament for almost a a full year.

Mackay also received a compensation payment £12,000 for being forced to resign his ministerial post through his own stupidity and arrogance.

 

People in other walks of public life would certainly have faced a reckoning long before now, yet for some reason Derek Mackay continues to lead a very charmed existence.

 

 

We Need To Talk About Derek (10/05/20)

Scotland's former finance minister has not been seen in public since being forced to resign back in February.

Nonetheless Derek has still been entitled to draw his £65,000  a year MSP salary which means he's 'earned' £16,000 over the past three months. 

To add insult to injury Derek is also entitled to a £12,000 compensation payment which will take his earning for the past quarter to £28,000. 

More than the UK's average annual salary in just 13 weeks and much more than most of Scotland's front-line workers are being paid for being at their work and keeping essential services going during the Coronavirus epidemic.

Now know this is all within the agreed 'rules' of the Scottish Parliament, but so were the 'rules' covering MPs' expenses in the Westminster Parliament which, of course, led to the biggest political scandal of modern times.

So if you ask me, the Scottish Parliament should tear up the rule book and bring in some much needed changes including a power of recall over Holyrood MSPs.  

  

We Need To Talk About Derek (07/05/20)

The Times reports that the Scottish Government's former finance minister, Derek Mackay, is to receive a £12,000 compensation payment for losing his job - despite the fact that Derek's fall from grace was his own stupid fault.

Now the article says that the Scottish Parliament has no option but to make this payment which must be true - no doubt it's part of the parliamentary rules.

But parliamentary 'rules' were part of the problem when it came to the MPs' expenses scandal at Westminster and if you ask me, the same is true of Holyrood.  

Derek Mackay cannot possibly be doing his job as an MSP properly if he has not been seen in public for three months and Derek will have a real brass neck if he agrees to accept  a large sum of money after losing his job in such unedifying circumstances.

The reality is that Derek Mackay is clearly able to decline or return any money the Scottish Parliament is duty bound to offer him because of its hidebound rules. 

And the Scottish Parliament could also benefit by introducing a Power of Recall over MSPs - a power that already exists in the Westminster Parliament and which has been used to good effect recently, of course.

  

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/disgraced-derek-mackay-gets-12-000-payoff-r5qwx0tzn

Disgraced Derek Mackay gets £12,000 payoff

Derek Mackay resigned over texts he sent to a teenager- Photo KEN JACK/GETTY IMAGES

By Marc Horne - The Times

Derek Mackay, the former finance secretary, is set to receive a £12,000 severance payment this week, despite not being seen in public for three months.

Mr Mackay resigned from Nicola Sturgeon’s cabinet in February after it emerged he sent 270 messages to a 16-year-old boy including one in which he said: “I think you are really cute.”

He is entitled to a severance payment of £11,945 — the equivalent of three months’ cabinet salary — for losing ministerial office. This sum is paid out by the Scottish parliament after 90 days.

Mr Mackay has earned more than £15,000 as the MSP for Renfrewshire North & West since early February.

There is no mechanism to remove him from Holyrood, and he remains entitled to his £64,470 salary as an MSP. If he continues as an MSP until the next Holyrood elections, he will also be entitled to about £50,000 as a “resettlement grant”.

A Scottish Conservative spokesman said: “Given the circumstances of his resignation, it’s pretty outrageous Derek Mackay is due a ministerial payout.”

Mr Mackay failed to respond when asked if he intended to accept the payment, or give it to charity.

A Holyrood spokesman said: “The Scottish parliamentary corporate body has no discretion in relation to the making of payments.”